by A. A. Bell
‘Yes.’
‘True,’ Van Danik said, and explained that his audio and other sensors had verified Ben’s response and effectively cross-checked it with his subconscious.
‘You were born in May?’ Zhou continued.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re an only child?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your hobbies include surfing and bushwalking?’
‘Yes.’
‘You started work today at 6 am?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your hair is black?’
‘Yes.’ Ben stifled a laugh. ‘Obviously... oh, sorry.’
Zhou pressed a button that made an audible click. ‘That’s okay. Emotion of any kind during responses is actually helpful.’
He clicked the button again and continued with another four yes/no style questions — ‘You’ve been working here since June in various wards? You hold a current driver’s licence? Your parents were Afro-British and Australian? You’re employed here as a trainee social worker?’ — all of which Ben answered in the affirmative.
‘Take a break and blink your eyes a few times,’ Van Danik suggested.
‘Now the next ten questions,’ Zhou explained, ‘must all be answered with deliberate lies. Do you understand?’
‘No,’ Ben lied.
‘You were born in May?’ Zhou continued.
‘No.’
‘Your hobbies include cleaning toilets?’
‘No. Wait, wait! Sorry, I should have said yes to that. I hate cleaning toilets!’
Zhou chuckled as if he’d been expecting to trip him up on that one. ‘You’re married?’ he continued.
‘Yes,’ Ben replied, taking greater care with his answers.
‘You have an older brother and sister?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve hurt your foot?’
‘Ahh... no.’
‘You ride a horse to work?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have brown eyes?’
‘Yes... no,’ he said, correcting the truth to a lie again.
‘You’re doing just fine. Try this one. You have eleven fingers?’
Ben laughed. ‘Yes.’
‘And you were released from jail on your birthday?’
‘How did you know I was in jail, let alone released on my birthday?’
‘It says so here.’ Zhou pointed to a line in the extract from Ben’s staff file.
‘Oh. I. I didn’t realise they kept those notes from my job interview.’
‘I wouldn’t worry,’ Van Danik said. ‘They hired you anyway. Something minor, was it?’
Ben shook his head, still wondering how well Mira could hear. ‘It was serious.’
‘Hang on, that was the truth,’ Van Danik reported.
‘Yes, but I’d already told my ten lies, and that’s more than enough for anyone, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose,’ Zhou conceded. ‘Now we’re going to detach you from the equipment and you’re going to do some callisthenics over there, away from the cables, to get your blood pumping.’
‘You mean like running on the spot or something?’
‘Sit-ups, push-ups, whatever you can manage on your injured feet, so long as your body temperature is up before we try again.’
Ben nodded and crossed the floor towards Mira, where he dropped to his knees and counted off fifty clapping push-ups, then returned to his chair with barely a puff.
‘You’re in good shape,’ Zhou commented. ‘The next set of questions will be a little more complicated. This time, your answers can be as long as you need them to be, and you can either lie or tell the truth, or tell half-truths. No need to tell us which is which until we’re finished, understand?’
‘No,’ Ben replied with a smile to reveal the lie.
Zhou nodded and started with ten questions that could be easily verified from his staff file regarding his duties, medical records, allergies, inoculations, work experience, previous jobs, and accident record. Then they progressed to another ten questions that involved greater subjectivity, including professional goals, work satisfaction and who he enjoyed working with the most. At the end, they went through his answers again, asking him to verify if their equipment had picked up his lies, half-truths and truths with a success rate of one hundred per cent.
Van Danik clapped his hands at the results. ‘So far so good!’
‘The last ten questions,’ Zhou said, ‘are supposed to include a few that you’ve already answered as well as a few harmless childhood memories that stir the strongest emotions. But considering that you have a more recent experience that’s particularly emotive, I’d like to include a few questions about that instead, if that’s okay with you?’
‘Suits me,’ Ben replied. ‘Like I said, I’ve been aching for another chance at clearing my name.’
‘Hold on a second,’ Van Danik cautioned. ‘The last ten have to be answered in front of a witness.’
‘Someone you know, but not very well,’ Zhou explained. ‘Which is why we’ve asked for staff and clients to attend sessions in pairs. We expect it to temper your responses and make the tests more challenging to interpret.’
‘More valuable for us,’ Van Danik emphasised. ‘Your responses are recorded anonymously, remember, so they’ll be useless for clearing your name of any police record. The best you could hope for at this stage is a little personal reassurance that more accurate equipment is currently in development. On the downside, blabbing about it outside this room is likely to delay our release date.’
‘But on the upside,’ Zhou added, ‘and this has to be held in strictest confidence, we’d be happy to redo these tests again officially for you after the equipment has made it through testing with a one hundred per cent success rate. By then, our financiers will be looking for test cases to stir up international media.’
Van Danik grunted in agreement. ‘Publicity stunting. I hate it, but showcasing an injustice will be near the top of their wish list, and since a lot of good will come of it eventually, it’s a necessary evil.’
‘My lips are sealed,’ Ben replied, ‘and my conscience is clean in the meantime. Take all the time you need.’
‘Let’s get into it,’ Van Danik replied.
He unplugged Mira from her music and led her to sit behind Dr Zhou, explaining that they needed Ben to see her face over Zhou’s shoulder.
‘We’re going to ask Ben a few sticky questions,’ Zhou told her. ‘And we need him to answer them in front of someone with whom he needs to maintain a good working relationship. You don’t have to do or say anything, although you’re welcome to pull faces at some of his answers if you feel like it. Mainly, we just need you to sit quietly and listen, if that’s okay with you?’
‘May I ask him questions too?’
Zhou and Van Danik exchanged glances.
‘Like what?’ asked Van Danik.
‘Like what crime he committed and how long he really spent in jail.’
‘Actually those two are already top of our list,’ Zhou said. ‘Do you agree to be his witness?’
‘Yes, I do!’
Ben swallowed hard, knowing the next set of questions were likely to make or break their relationship.
NINE
‘L et’s start with the verifiable question,’ Zhou said. ‘How long were you in jail?’
‘Six years, two months, four days, eleven hours, two minutes and nineteen seconds,’ Ben replied.
‘Measured it exactly, huh?’
‘Didn’t need to. Time can scar you all by itself.’
‘That’s an exaggeration,’ Van Danik confirmed from his monitor. ‘But not much. He was accurate to the minute.’
‘Okay, for what crime?’ Zhou asked.
‘Armed robbery, harbouring a felon and. and second-degree murder.’
‘Of whom?’
‘An old guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time during a convenience-store robbery.’
‘Were you guilty?’
‘
Of murder, no! Absolutely not. Of harbouring the felon, yes, but not intentionally.’
‘And the armed robbery?’
‘Innocent, completely and utterly. I was sleeping at a friend’s place that night. August fourth. It was his birthday. I was there the whole time, and the only reason I was guilty of harbouring him as a felon is because he was over at my place the next night, returning some of my clothes, when the cops burst in. But I’m sure it was him, and his brother maybe. I reckon they spiked my drink at the party so I was stuck there all night, and then set me up to take the rap for them.’
‘And you took a lie-detector test as part of the trial process?’
‘Sure, but the thing had to be faulty. I swear I wasn’t guilty, but the jury was convinced otherwise by that and a stack of other trumped-up evidence.’
‘Fantastic!’ Van Danik said. ‘Oh, not for you at the time, obviously.’ He briefly consulted with Zhou over their other readouts, in particular the EEG scans of localised portions of Ben’s brain. ‘This is exactly what we needed to see!’
‘It had better not suggest that I’m guilty.’
‘Exactly the opposite. Your subconscious and conscious minds are in total agreement. You’re innocent, all right. There’s no doubt about it. Even better: it should only take another hour or so of questioning your subconscious to work out exactly what did happen in the room around you while you slept, and from that you might be lucky to identify the hard evidence you need not only to clear your name but also to put the real killer behind bars.’
‘Back up, Doc. You want to question my what?’
‘Your subconscious. Your database of every fact you’ve ever learned or experienced.’
‘How can that work? I already begged my lawyer to hire a hypnotist and she said that any form of hypnotherapy wouldn’t hold up in court as evidence.’
Van Danik nodded. ‘That’s because, officially, hypnotism is still in the realms of hocus-pocus. However, brain scans, bioelectrical responses and other tangible physiological responses are all perfectly scientific. The subconscious can’t yet speak for itself in court, but with this equipment we hope to prove that it can respond physiologically in a reliable manner to both truth and lies, whether you’re conscious or not during either the crime or the interrogation afterwards. But the equipment isn’t intended for use in court anyway. By using it during initial stages of investigation, truth can be disgorged that points to hard and tangible evidence.’
‘And the only reason we’re telling you this much,’ Zhou cut in, ‘is because it seems obvious that a relationship could be mutually beneficial. Confidentially, we believe this system will be far more reliable than interrogating a willing witness. Take, for example, your initial response about cleaning toilets as a hobby. At first you said no, and since you were supposed to be lying, this meant that your hobbies did include cleaning them. However, your subconscious sparked an opposite response, which meant it not only knew what your conscious mind was supposed to be saying, it also responded correctly even while the answer coming out of your mouth was accidentally incorrect. It wasn’t until you said you hated cleaning toilets that your subconscious and conscious responses realigned biomedically.’
‘Are you telling me this messy tangle of flashing lights and gizmos can tell if I’m lying even if I think I’m telling the truth?’
‘Confidentially, yes,’ Zhou replied. ‘In fact, for questions that can be answered by a simple yes or no, you don’t have to say anything at all. Words aren’t the only form of expression. The human body has a language all of its own, and I don’t just mean the external signals we give off as part of normal communication, such as waving the left hand to say goodbye in one country in such a way that can be interpreted as an insult in other cultures. I’m talking about the internal physiological responses that are the same no matter where you live or what you look like. Alie is a lie to the subconscious mind of any person of either sex, any race, age, health status or state of mind.’
‘Will you honour your promise to take me home?’ Mira cut in.
‘Miss Chambers, please,’ Zhou said. ‘These tests are serious.’
‘And highly confidential,’ Van Danik reminded her. ‘You’re only here as a witness who can apply an additional level of stress on our test subject.’
‘She’s achieving that,’ Ben replied. ‘Let me answer her while I’m still hooked up to this thing. She’d never believe me otherwise. Yes, Mira,’ he said before they could argue. ‘I swear that I’ll always honour my promises, come hell or high water. How’s that?’
‘Well, your subconscious and conscious minds are in agreement with your statement,’ Zhou replied. ‘Now can we please get back to the last few questions? We need to discuss something touchier now — perhaps any instances of maltreatment or misdiagnosis amongst any of your clients?’
‘No!’ Mira snapped. ‘You can’t talk about me! I told you that in confidence, Ben! They’ll find out and it’ll make things even worse for me!’
Zhou’s mouth fell open. ‘We had no intention of discussing you specifically, Miss Chambers. If you have personal issues, it’s up to you to raise them with your matron. We only need to discuss these issues generally.’
‘You can’t do that either! In my ward so far, there’s only me, an Emma and three girls called Sarah. If anyone complains, I’ll bet they blame me.’
‘What if we make a deal?’ Zhou suggested. ‘So long as you don’t tell anyone about us, we won’t tell anyone here about any of his answers that concern you?’
‘Or your reaction just now,’ Van Danik added, ‘which could be just as compromising. We’re not here to cause trouble for you.’
‘Actually,’ Zhou pointed out, ‘she was listening to music at the time you explained that to Ben. In any case, you know it now, Miss Chambers. Do we have a deal?’
‘Well, okay,’ she said cautiously. ‘I suppose if I’m going to start trusting people, I should start with some who have their own lie detector.’
‘Okay then, Ben, let’s back up,’ Zhou said, recording again. ‘Do you know of any instances where patients have been misdiagnosed?’
‘Not in the traditional manner.’ Ben looked past the forest of medical equipment to watch Mira’s reaction, but she was now guarding her facial responses and emotions very tightly. ‘Medicine isn’t my field of expertise,’ he continued, ‘but I am experienced at listening to people with disabilities, and I’m convinced that specialists under the old regime were trying to force square pegs into round holes.’
‘You’ll need to clarify that a little more,’ Van Danik said. ‘I haven’t got a clear picture on that response from the EEG.’
‘Maybe that’s because I find it hard to explain,’ Ben replied. ‘It’s a bit like a communication gap between the sensory perceptions of intellectually handicapped clients — what they hear, see, taste and smell — and how they’re categorised by the database of syndromes and illnesses that medical specialists use to decide on effective treatments.’
Zhou scratched his chin. ‘So you suspect there are illnesses and disabilities here that haven’t yet been identified by medical science?’
‘Yes, but I wouldn’t call them illnesses or disabilities. They’re more like conditions and abilities that often go hand in hand with sensory overload. Take idiot savants, for example. There’s a patient coming into Mira’s ward today who was nicknamed
Moaning Joan under the old regime. She’s incapable of feeding or caring for herself, but one of the new psychologists recently amplified and slowed down a recording of her mumbling to discover that she’s constantly calculating three-dimensional trigonometry in her head with answers that are accurate down to twenty decimal places — at least.’
‘Flux me!’ Van Danik whistled.
‘Indeed,’ Zhou said. ‘I’ve read a few case studies like that over the years, but I’ve never had contact with specific patients. I’ll look forward to getting an insight into her eyes, so to speak.’
‘I
doubt you’ll be able to. We’ve managed to get her to speak a little slower, but she’s still mostly incomprehensible.’
‘Has she volunteered for our survey?’
‘I’m not sure. I can speak to my supervisor, if you like. But you’ll need more time for her appointment, because you’ll need to record, rewind and slow down each response, even for simple answers like yes or no.’
Van Danik nodded. ‘It’ll be interesting to see if the sensors can keep up with her, even if we only touch on the control questions.’
Ben grinned. ‘I wouldn’t mind sitting in on that session myself. Like Mira, Joan is a client who keeps almost entirely to herself.’
‘You seem pretty enthusiastic,’ Van Danik said. ‘Am I right in assuming you can see potential medical applications for our equipment in future with your mental pa... I mean clients?’
‘Of course! The disability that made Joan an outcast could be developed as a useful skill that should help to improve her quality of life and give her a role in society, while also helping her to cope with her sensory overload. There has to be a use for clients who can calculate complex maths in their head; we just have to figure out what it is. And it would have made my job much easier if someone could have identified the true nature of her condition earlier, by asking her questions and using a lie detector to give us an insight into her responses.’
‘Sounds like a marketable idea,’ Van Danik agreed. ‘Intellect matures significantly after it recognises a purpose for its own existence.’
‘That’s as good a way of putting it as any, I suppose. As a social worker, I’m investigating opportunities for Joan that she’ll not only excel at but also enjoy. And now that she’s also semi-aware of what she’s doing, she’s a lot easier to work with — and a lot more confident. But having a reliable lie detector like this could help in other ways — not only for Joan but for other clients, like Mira. We could judge the difference between genuine enjoyment of an activity and faked tolerance.’
‘You mean clients would lie about enjoying a program that’s designed to be fun and helpful?’ Van Danik asked.
Mira nodded, her movement almost imperceptible to anyone but Ben.
